


Won't you help me? I'm dying to fall in love (the disperato remix)

by nekojita



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Andrew's is different though, Angst, F/F, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Neil's background is basically the same here, One-Sided Attraction, So much angst, but still a huge asshole, no happy ending sorry, so Drake is somewhat different here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2020-12-31 07:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21108737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nekojita/pseuds/nekojita
Summary: AFTGRemix of ApprenticedMagician's 'Won't you help me? I'm dying to fall in love'Andrew has always done his job as an Angel of Death, paired with his twin Aaron, an Angel of Life. But then, he's never really been tempted to break the rules before, never been tempted to ignore the names on his deathlist and tamper with the balance between Life and Death.Until he begins to take an interest in humans.He's never been tempted to Fall in love (to Fall).Until he begins to take an interest in one particular human.





	Won't you help me? I'm dying to fall in love (the disperato remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ApprenticedMagician](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApprenticedMagician/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Won't you help me? I'm dying to fall in love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12715713) by [ApprenticedMagician](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApprenticedMagician/pseuds/ApprenticedMagician). 

> I can only hope I didn't mess this up too much and that I've done some justice to ApprenticedMagician's fic.
> 
> 'Disperato' is 'desperate, hopeless' in music terms (and overall, basically). Not really the section of the piece where you get your groove on and break out the glow sticks, unless bleak's your thing. So fair warning for angst ahead.  
*******

*******

Angels of Life and Angels of Death have always been paired together in sets at birth; siblings cast as each other’s shadow and support, mirror images (sometimes literally) tasked to work together and balance out the other for eternity.

It was about harmony, about the checks and balances that the higher powers seemed to love _so much_. One Angel had their lifelist, a list of people who were meant to be saved, and one Angel had their deathlist, a list of people who were no longer meant to be alive.

Andrew accepted the fact that he was the Angel of Death and that Aaron was the Angel of Life, that he could never touch the humans who were their assignments unless it was to reap their souls while his twin could kiss them to bestow healing. He had no need or desire to touch a mortal, not when the only being he wanted to touch was his brother, to lay next to him when they were young cherubs, to preen the silver feathers of Aaron’s wings or sit with their shoulders pressed together as they watched the stars spin in the heavens around them.

It didn’t mean he never grew frustrated with the way things had turned out, that he didn’t go off by himself from time to time to observe the mortals (to get away from Aaron and Renee and the other angels, to leave the silver city). He didn’t want to watch Aaron touch another mortal, to hear Renee prattle on about duty and blessings, he didn’t… he didn’t _know_ what he wanted.

The demon first showed up not long after (a century or two?) Andrew and Aaron were officially assigned their duties, when they grew out of being cherubs and became proper angels. It wasn’t a fallen angel – it didn’t bear the scars from lost wings, but it was still dangerous.

“So pretty,” it crooned as it stayed safely out of reach. “If only the humans could see you, they’d feel blessed that an angel like you ended their suffering.” It laughed as it glanced at the body of one Jan Buchner, upon whom Andrew had bestowed his deathtouch to release the man from the agony of cancer eating its way through his insides. “They’d welcome you with a smile.”

“Go away, demon,” Andrew said as if shooing away an annoying fly as he prepared to move onto the next name on his list.

“Drake, call me Drake,” the demon insisted, a broad smile on its ugly face and a knowing gleam in its dark brown eyes.

Somehow, the demon (Drake) managed to track Andrew down whenever he spent any amount of time in the mortal world, would appear (always out of reach) and talk about how pretty Andrew was, about how the humans were lucky to have him as their Angel of Death… would talk about _Aaron_.

“Hmm, I learned the most interesting thing the other day,” Drake said, his deep voice pouring out in a sickeningly slow drawl that always got on Andrew’s nerves. “You’re a _twin_.” The demon paused to laugh while Andrew’s hands clenched into fists, hands which could kill with a touch… except Drake wasn’t on his list. Except killing a demon who merely talked would _taint_ Andrew, would mar the hands he used to touch his brother, to comb through Aaron’s silver wings.

“Imagine that, two of you.” Drake hummed in a truly obscene manner while he leered at Andrew. “Oh a… a man could die happy with the two of you, couldn’t he?”

Andrew stepped forward as he summoned his power, his hands held out with dangerous intent, and Drake’s pleased laughter filled the air as he vanished back to Hell.

Despite his desire to throttle the demon, to see it die by his hands… he knew that it was occupied with _him_ and not Aaron, that his brother was safe from its taunts and leers and maddening conversations. That there was only so much Drake would dare to push with an Angel of Death, but what about an Angel of Life?

No, better to keep Drake’s obscene presence focused on himself.

He divided his time with Aaron and Drake and his deathlist, with watching the humans to learn why they’re worth so much effort.

Then one day… one day Lu Zhong’s name appeared on his list, one name among many. Yet when he went to gather the young woman, he found himself pausing for some reason. Maybe it’s because of Drake going on and on about how ‘lucky’ she was to receive his touch. Maybe it’s because of yet another pointless talk with Renee about responsibility and blessings.

Maybe it’s because of the way she struggled so damn hard even while she bled out during the birth of her daughter and Andrew found himself respectful of that struggle, respectful of the bond between the mother and child. Despite the fact that he and Aaron seemed to fight with each half the time they’re in each other’s presence anymore… they’d always be tied together, they’d always support each other.

They would always be there for the other in the end.

He left the woman in search of his brother and asked Aaron something he never had before – he asked Aaron to save Lu Zhong. The request stunned Aaron, as it’s _just not done_… but Aaron did it without a fight for once (not much of a fight).

Aaron went to the young woman who barely held on as the doctors fought to save her, stroked back the sweat-matted hair on her forehead and placed a kiss there, then stayed by her side until she slowly rallied a few minutes later. It’s a temporary ‘fix’ in that Andrew had only bought her a few months, had pushed back when she’d appear again on another angel’s deathlist, but it meant that she had a little time with her child.

There was Life and there was Death, and each would have their place with all things.

Andrew paid more attention to the mortals after that, tried to block out Drake’s mocking voice as he watched them (as he realized that the ‘rules’ could be broken). When he found Phillip Fontaine dying from an illness that could have easily been treated if caught in time, he once more sought out his brother.

Only that time, Aaron said ‘no’ and meant it, as he had his own mortal to save, one marked on his lifelist and so more ‘worthy’ in his mind. Andrew felt a spark of rage over being denied, but it quickly sputtered out due to Aaron’s determination; he couldn’t fault his brother for being as resolved as he felt right then.

That and Aaron complied with the next request, and the next, and the next. He complied with almost all of them, depending on if they conflicted with his own duties. Andrew didn’t know if it wasn’t worth the fighting between them otherwise or if Aaron was used to following Andrew’s lead (after an initial, token resistance).

In the end, Andrew didn’t care because he (mostly) got his way. He certainly didn’t care about the ‘rules’, about responsibility or cost. He didn’t care that for each person on the deathlist who’s granted a stay, that someone on the lifelist died when they shouldn’t.

There was always a balance between Life and Death, one way or another.

Drake congratulated him for ‘bucking the system’, for putting to use his free will. Why should the humans be the only one to have fun with it, eh? Angels were so boring, were so bound by rules, but not _Andrew_.

It was after the thirteenth ‘intervention’ when Andrew noticed him, noticed the mortal Nathaniel Wesninski. At first, he’s drawn to him because he remembered Aaron mentioning a difficult name on his lifelist, a young boy he’d stayed with almost all night to ensure that he was safe enough to survive.

Now the mortal was on Andrew’s deathlist.

He was fifteen years old and due to die from gunshot wounds. There shouldn’t be anything about him to draw Andrew in, to make him break the rules yet again… but the boy’s soul _glowed_ with a brightness that Andrew had rarely seen. Yes, it was tattered around the edges from enduring so much, but it _had_ endured. The boy was beautiful and strong and resilient, and Andrew so wanted to brush aside the sweat which formed on the boy’s forehead as he told him it would all right, that he would get better – except he couldn’t.

His touch was death.

He fled toward Aaron, toward someone who _could_ touch Nathaniel, who could _save_ the boy. All he had to do was mention the boy’s name and Aaron left with haste to save him, obviously remembering him from the past.

Andrew paced back and forth, his wings rattling behind him as he waited for his brother to come back. It took a while (took too long) before his brother returned to the silver city.

“Did you know I’d saved him once before?” Aaron asked as he eyed Andrew up and down, a slight frown on his face as he gazed upon Andrew’s tousled wings.

Andrew turned to leave, no longer willing to remain surrounded by his fellow angels (his own brother). “No,” he lied, averse to admit anything about Nathaniel for some reason.

Aaron’s talent had worked as always, had granted physical healing to Nathaniel, had soothed his fever and allowed his scarred body to recover from the wounds. Andrew watched over the teenager, invisible as always to the mortals, drawn to him for some unfathomable reason. He was there as Nathaniel and his mother raced down a highway in the middle of the night, as they checked into yet another hovel motel, as they slid unnoticed through crowded streets, as she smacked her own exhausted child to keep him moving a little longer.

(He should have been warned away by that fascination. Warned by the stories of what happened when angels fell in love. When angels Fell because of love. But how could such a thing happen to him?)

His hands ached to reach out to touch the mortal woman when she dealt out the abuse, to claim her soul, yet he forced his fingers to curl into fists and his arms to remain at his sides instead.

“Hmm, redheads, eh?” Drake all but purred a few feet off to the left. “They’re what gets you going? I wouldn’t have guessed that, thought they were off-limits to you do-gooders after Lucifer.” He laughed at the lousy joke as he leaned toward Nathaniel’s sleeping figure – at least until Nathaniel’s brow grew furrowed and Andrew turned to glare at the demon. “Me? I like blonds myself,” he said as he stepped back with his scaly, prehensile tail wrapped around his right leg. “Always had a thing for short blonds.” He leered at Andrew as his obscenely long and forked tongue slithered out to lap at his chin.

“Touch him and I’ll annihilate you,” Andrew promised, uncaring about the cost.

(There already had been enough warnings, but that should have been the one to wake him up, to make him leave Nathaniel Wesninski to the mortal’s Fate.)

As soon as a suddenly compliant Drake backed away with his hands held up and then vanished, Andrew’s attention was drawn back to the boy with freshly dyed hair and a new bruise on his left cheek and a bright soul despite all the pain it suffered. He hovered near the bed and struggled with the urge to cover Nathaniel with his wings, to tuck back the dark hair that fell on the lovely and bruised face, to offer caresses to one so used to violence.

Yet he couldn’t, not when his touch was death.

Anger roiled inside of Andrew over that fact, that _he’d_ been the twin born to mete out Death.

All he wanted was just to _touch_.

It grew to hurt so much that he returned to the silver city, where he chased Renee away with cruel words and quarreled with Aaron more than ever before, but at least he wasn’t haunted with the sight of the beautiful, stubborn boy he couldn’t touch. He hadn’t been there long when a new name appeared on his deathlist – Mary Hatford.

She also appeared on Aaron’s lifelist.

Such things happened, but rarely. Andrew stared at his confused twin and thought about Drake, because for such a thing to occur, usually a mortal’s destiny had been interfered with in some manner, which meant that an otherworldly creature like a demon had been involved.

Drake was the only demon he knew who’d bother to go to such lengths to mess with the twins like that. Perhaps it was time Andrew dealt with him if he was doing more than spewing filth.

Yet when he and Aaron went to settle things with Mary Hatford, he realized that it wasn’t Drake’s fault but his own – his and Aaron’s. It was because of them breaking the rules, of disregarding the names on their lists (on _Andrew’s_ list) that Mary had appeared on both of theirs because she was Nathaniel Wesninski’s mother. They found both mortals in a car parked on a beach at night, with Mary bleeding internally from brutal injuries.

Andrew and Aaron went still as they took in the situation, as the realization washed through them. Andrew gazed at the woman for several seconds before he turned his attention to Nathaniel to make sure the boy was all right (bruised but otherwise unhurt), then started when Aaron spoke up.

“Let me,” his brother said, a clear indication that he meant to save her, that he meant for the abuser to live and not die… and Andrew found himself vanishing and reappearing at the woman’s side without a thought.

No, with _one_ thought – if Mary lived because of their actions, because of Andrew ignoring his deathlist, did that put those he’d saved in jeopardy?

Did it put _Nathaniel_ in jeopardy?

He wouldn’t allow that.

Before Aaron could move, Andrew thrust his hand inside of the dying woman to snatch at her fraying soul and yank it out of her beaten body, hastening her death. She was nothing but cold flesh and bones as he stepped aside, as he refused to let himself look at a pleading Nathaniel and at Aaron instead.

“Let this be the last of it,” he said before he returned to the silver city with the soul before it could flee to some other living haven.

Nathaniel’s soul had a new tear on it when Andrew visited him again, walking along a California highway. The boy was worn down, sunburned and shell-shocked, but alive. He glanced to the side when Andrew approached as if he could see him, which was impossible, then rubbed his eyes and shook his head before staring straight ahead.

Andrew kept him company until a truck driver Andrew knew was safe gave him a lift.

Later, another truck driver wasn’t so ‘safe’, and Andrew asked Aaron to save the boy again.

Nathaniel was tracked down in a few months and barely escaped after a vicious cut to his abdomen, and Andrew asked Aaron to spare the boy (young man) again.

It was winter in Arizona and Nathaniel had been sleeping rough. Andrew needed Aaron to save the young man after he fell deathly ill.

“You can’t keep him just because he’s pretty,” Aaron told him in a snide tone as he laid hands on Nathaniel, as he held him close and pressed his lips against Nathaniel’s feverish forehead with a tenderness that spoke of more than duty and pity.

Andrew felt the now-familiar anger and something else, something so bitter and virulent and powerful stir inside of him at the sight of his brother touching Nathaniel, of holding him like a lover, and let loose a blast of power that scorched several of Aaron’s silver-colored feathers before he vanished (fled the sight before him).

Andrew couldn’t touch Nathaniel (not like Aaron could, dammit), but he couldn’t stay away from the young man, either. He watched him from just out of reach, watched him sleep, watched him run, watched him try to blend in with the other mortals. Watched him struggle to remain alive despite the violence which was never far away, watched him continue to move on when so many others would have given up, given in….

In all the millennia he’d lived, with all the souls he’d reaped, he’d never known one like Nathaniel Wesninski. It’s not just that the young man was ‘pretty’, like Aaron had said and Drake constantly threw in his face, it’s that he possessed such a strong, fierce will. It’s that despite how tattered and anguished his soul had grown from being denied its well-earned rest, Nathaniel continued to get up each time he’s knocked down, each time he’s blocked from the peace of death, to get on his feet and run.

He’s so beautiful when he runs.

(Andrew wished that Nathaniel was an angel, that he’d been given a pair of wings and could fly properly.)

(He thought that he would give the mortal his own wings, if he could.)

As if cursed, violence and harm stalked Nathaniel like a hungry predator; Death intent on claiming what’s long overdue. Andrew continued to deny as much as he could, to have Aaron undo the damage inflicted on his mortal again and again and _again_.

Even if that potent emotion grew stronger and stronger each time Aaron healed Nathaniel, grew more astringent when he watched his brother embrace _his_ mortal. When Drake cackled and sneered about Andrew losing to his simpering brother.

He did the only thing he could, which was lash out at those closest to him.

Renee, ever the clever one, the devout and dutiful one, had realized that things are wrong, that something was out of order. She picked up on the strain wearing down on Nathaniel’s soul, the agony of being ‘spared’ too many times, and was doing her best to find him (to grant him succor as an Angel of Death). 

Andrew would _never_ allow that to happen.

She was powerful in her own right, but he was determined… driven… he wouldn’t fail Nathaniel. He wouldn’t let her near his mortal, and used his fists to prove that point when she tried to ‘reason’ with him. “He needs Rest, Andrew,” she pleaded as he hit her yet again, as he didn’t stop hitting her, as he wouldn’t until she backed down at last.

“He deserves Life,” he argued as he reached for her feathers made of glass, the feathers which everyone adored because of their beauty, their ability to cast rainbows in the light, and cracked them in his fists because when had Nathaniel ever enjoyed anything beautiful?

Renee shuddered in pain but didn’t back down right away. “Peace doesn’t exist for him there,” she tried again while Aaron and Allison, Renee’s sibling and Angel of Life to her Angel of Death, stared on in horror. Andrew didn’t care about them, not when they didn’t care about Nathaniel (or cared too much).

“He is one soul!” Allison screamed, while beside her Aaron flinched and shook his head yet remained quiet. “Just like all the others! How many souls have you traded for his one?! How many lives?!”

It didn’t matter because those other souls didn’t matter, none of them did except Nathaniel. Why couldn’t any of them see that?

Only Nathaniel mattered.

(He ignored that warning, too.)

Yet the balance won’t be denied and kept putting Andrew’s mortal in danger, kept trying to end the life which Andrew was so desperate to maintain, to keep going at all costs. It’s maddening when all he could do was watch each time Nathaniel was so close to being ended and ask his brother to save the young man.

Andrew tried to save a mortal, to bring them the peace of healing instead of the succor of death. _Not_ with Nathaniel of course, there was no way he’d risk his mortal like that, but with another name on his deathlist. He was gentle and hopeful as he touched their cheek and leaned in for a tender kiss, as he willed them to live.

It failed.

He tried it again.

It failed, too.

He tried it again, and again, and again and again and again. Each time it failed, would end with a peaceful death, not the influx of healing as he hoped.

Drake thought it was hilarious.

“Aw, you’re giving up already?” the demon taunted after the seventh failure. “I never took you for a quitter! Maybe you’re just not slipping them enough tongue and you should-“

Andrew blasted him with his power, made the demon yowl in pain as skin blistered and peeled beneath his hands, and felt better for it.

He didn’t give a damn about any consequences.

(Another warning ignored.)

There was a quiet lull with Nathaniel, one where the boy lived in a rundown apartment and ate semi-regularly, where Andrew watched him sleep in the same bed night after night. Where he wondered what it would have been like if Nathaniel had been born an angel (definitely an Angel of Death like Andrew) or if Andrew had been born mortal (how would they have met?).

Nathaniel… Nathaniel made Andrew think of such impossible things.

He was off clearing several names from his deathlist when he looked down to find Nathaniel’s name on it once again, and immediately went in search of his brother. He didn’t even give Aaron a chance to ask questions, he merely grabbed him and then the two of them were on Earth, were in some basement where Nathaniel was chained to the floor, burned and bleeding, while some man was about to take an ax to his legs.

Andrew moved immediately toward the man who’d hurt his mortal while his brother went to shield Nathaniel, his right hand outstretched to reap the bastard’s soul, to plunge deep to gather it and then crush it in his hand.

Nathan Wesninski fell to the floor dead, unable to harm his son anymore. Andrew continued to crush the man’s soul until it was nothing but miniscule particles that slipped free to flee from his seething rage, unwilling to take it to the silver city for its proper rest when he knew the fractured bits would spend eternity hiding in terror on earth.

That done, he stepped over the latest mortal whose life had been traded for Nathaniel’s to see how his mortal was doing, and frowned to find the young man sobbing in terror as Aaron struggled to soothe him. Even his own brother was crying, as tied to Nathaniel as he was from healing him so often.

Once again, Andrew was filled with rage and bitterness at the sight of Aaron _holding_ Nathaniel, of _caring_ so much for someone who wasn’t his.

His brother looked up at him with those tear-filled eyes and begged for him to let Nathaniel die. “Please, let this be the End of it.”

The rage almost overwhelmed Andrew for a moment, especially since Nathaniel was also begging – begging to be spared by the monster who’d tortured him, who’d carved into and peeled away his skin, who’d burned it in an effort to cause him so much pain. It looked as if he’d either tried to crawl away or had been dragged across the wooden stairs and the ground as there were splinters and dirt all along his front, a trail of blood on the stone floor and his nails torn away. The young man was filled with such pain that Andrew was almost overwhelmed with it.

Yet he still couldn’t give up his mortal, couldn’t stand the thought of him being no more, so he bit into his lip and shook his head. “Not the End. Not yet,” he declared.

As if Nathaniel had heard the words, he cried out and flinched in Aaron’s arms while Aaron silently pleaded with Andrew, his almost golden eyes filled with entreaty. “Andrew, he needs to be saved! _Save him_!”

Aaron _knew_ the only way that Andrew could ‘save’ a mortal. He _knew_ what he was asking and still did it.

Andrew gazed at his brother, at someone he never thought would ask so much of him, before he stared at Nathaniel. “I will save him, just not like that.”

He could see the disappointment bloom inside of his twin at that denial, the heartache, and had to clench his teeth from saying something when Aaron started kissing Nathaniel (to heal him, Andrew tried to convince himself, only to heal him… and failed).

The bitterness grew with every kiss, every touch, until it felt as if it ate away at Andrew’s insides. As if it ate away everything good inside of him except his feelings for Nathaniel. Andrew didn’t look away, and Aaron didn’t stop for too long of a time.

They remained with Nathaniel until someone came for the young man to help him.

They stayed with him a long time, as mortals reasoned things. 

They also didn’t speak to each other.

It was around a day and a half later when someone finally entered the basement, but she wasn’t there to help Nathaniel, rather to aid Nathan and clean up whatever mess he’d left, so Andrew added to the growing list of souls he’d prematurely collected to protect his mortal.

Aaron still said nothing to him, merely gazed at him with growing disappointment and tended to Nathaniel while Andrew wondered what would happen if he turned his power on another angel.

While he wondered if there was a life powerful enough to give in exchange for Nathaniel to properly heal his mortal’s anguished soul, to balance out the scales for more than a few measly months at a time.

(It was yet another warning he ignored, long past caring at that point.)

The sun set and rose again, and was about to set when a neighbor checked on the house, only to find Lola Malcolm’s prone body. That led to a frantic call to the police, which meant that help finally arrived for an unconscious Nathaniel, weak from dehydration and infection. The young man was so still at first that the police believed that he wasn’t dead.

Aaron followed Nathaniel to the hospital to continue offering whatever healing he could, while Andrew finally left, driven away by the roiling, acidic emotion inside of him. He didn’t know how much longer he could remain in his brother’s presence without lashing out, without tearing away feathers and bruising pale skin.

He knew he was in too deep with Nathaniel, that he should excise the mortal from his thoughts, his very being… but it was too late. Even if it wasn’t… he couldn’t find himself to care anymore about the damage he’d done to himself when all that mattered was Nathaniel.

The stubborn, shining mortal who almost seemed able to see him, almost seemed able to sense him. Who calmed down when Andrew was near him, so he spent as much time as possible in his mortal’s presence to the point that he neglected his duties, neglected his wings until the feathers lost their creamy color as they darkened from the outer edges inward (as the taint inside him slowly took hold).

Well, Andrew didn’t entirely neglect his duty; the souls he collected weren’t the ones on his deathlist, but they’re mortals who came too close to Nathaniel, who could’ve posed some sort of harm. He refused to allow anymore pain to be inflicted upon his mortal, to allow anymore violence to be done to him, and so harvested souls on a regular basis.

If it meant that Aaron was kept busy saving lives to ‘balance’ out the scales, he didn’t care in the slightest.

Well, it meant that his brother was too busy to come near Nathaniel.

(The mortals talked as if love was a good thing, a pure thing, but it left Andrew full of rage and vitriol and a need to destroy, left him full of a taint that spread throughout him and he couldn’t seem to care about anything other than one mortal young man.)

Renee tried to argue with him once again to let Nathaniel ‘rest’, to make him ‘see reason’, and he didn’t hold back that time, didn’t stop until Allison threw herself between them and pulled her sibling away; by then Andrew had already cracked most of Renee’s glass feathers, had shattered some of them beyond repair.

She wasn’t the only one he fought, but she’s the most persistent and so scarred the worst.

(Just as if he were a demon, as only demons left permanent scars when they fought. One last warning… but Andrew had realized that he was Falling after the first time he saved Nathaniel so he ignored it like all the others.)

Despite Andrew’s best efforts and Aaron’s repeat visits to the hospital, Nathaniel didn’t wake up and his name appeared yet again on Andrew’s deathlist. Frantic with concern, Andrew once again dragged his brother to the hospital room and motioned to the still young man.

Only that time, Aaron refused.

It took a moment for that to settle in since Aaron had rarely refused him and never for Nathaniel, not the young man whom Andrew suspected his brother cared for almost as much as he did (which made the rage and… and _hate_ seethe almost uncontrollably for a moment).

Then he accepted it, because he knew that expression on his twin’s face, knew that it wasn’t just Renee and Allison who believed that Nathaniel deserved his ‘rest’.

He knew that it was up to him to save his mortal.

“All right then,” he said with a nod, then reappeared behind the nurse checking Nathaniel’s vitals, intent on trading her life for his – intent on trading however many lives he had to for Nathaniel.

Except before he could touch her, could reach for her soul, Aaron let out a shout and grabbed onto him, held on so tight while Andrew demanded that he let him go, let him _save Nathaniel_.

Aaron continued to deny him, to let Nathaniel suffer, to let Nathaniel _die_, and it suddenly became _too much_.

Andrew Fell the last little bit as he thought about Nathaniel dying and Aaron kissing Nathaniel and him only wanting to touch Nathaniel and hold him close (hold him safe).

Hellfire burst free from Andrew, all that rage and hatred given life, and Aaron screamed as it consumed him, as it ate away his beautiful wings, as it burned his healing hands to stumps, as it blinded him. Andrew should have been horrified by what he’d just done… but part of him was satisfied that Aaron would never touch Nathaniel again.

(Andrew had truly Fallen.)

Aaron was dying, and for a moment Andrew reached for him… to what? Aaron was the Angel of Life, not Andrew. There’s nothing Andrew could do for his brother, especially when he felt a sharp stab along his shoulders, followed by the noise of something fallen to the floor.

His wings, feathers broken and dull brown.

He tried to summon his powers, but all that came was hellfire, which had already destroyed Aaron; there was nothing more of his angelic powers, nothing more that marked him as an Angel of Death. He couldn’t take Aaron’s or the nurse’s soul and barter them for Nathaniel’s, all he could do was watch and wait until Nathaniel’s time slowly (finally) came to an end.

All Andrew could do was watch while Aaron slowly died, an Angel of Life no more.

All he could do was watch and wait as an Angel of Death (probably Renee) came to claim Nathaniel at last.

He settled by his mortal’s bed as the nurse complained about a sudden chill and scurried from the room, and stroked Nathaniel’s cheek at last, Fallen and damned and unable to regret.

*******

**Author's Note:**

> *******  
That's it. Again, I hope you liked it, ApprenticedMagician!


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